WHAT IS ROCK CAMP?
PJ Olsson’s Rock Camp is a two week full-immersion music experience for talented young musicians. Rock Camp is intense, offering kids a real world experience that often changes lives and outlooks. Young musicians have an amazing opportunity to work closely with professional musicians, technical crews, audio engineers, light designers. The Rock Camp kids, typically ages 12-19, learn and grow through talent discovery, musical development, creative collaboration, relentless rehearsals, production design, aggressive promotion and live performance. The Rock Camp concludes with an epic rock concert that thrills and delights an audience of 1,000 fans.
WHY DO IT?
We love music and we know how to rock! Seriously rock!
In an age of smart-phones, video games, and overabundance social media, kids are more likely to “text” than talk and Facebook than “face-to-face.” In a time of technology that creates spaces between kids, our community needs to provide more opportunities for kids to come together in safe, positive, and cultivating environments.
PJ Olsson’s Rock Camp is a an experiment, to see what happens when kids have the opportunity to live up to their potential, learn from professionals, collaborate with other talented kids and accomplish challenging goals.
What's Learned
Rock Camp is not a school, we do not have a curriculum, we do not follow best practices or uphold institutional standards. Rock Camp has one simple goal:
TO PULL OFF A MIND BLOWING FINAL ROCK SHOW
We do whatever it takes to make that happen. Whatever it takes. We work the kids hard, because hard work is the only way it's going to happen.
ALONG THE WAY, KIDS LEARN HOW TO:
- Set challenging goals, working hard towards goals, and striving for excellence
- Focus, have discipline, mind the details, practice, and finish what they start
- Access their own creativity and ideas, and breathe life into their work
- Collaborate, be open-minded, respected differences, and appreciate diversity
- Be empathetic and compassionate towards others, teach as well as learn
Yes, Rock Camp can be an “intense” experience for young musicians. In just two short weeks, campers work through the entire process of producing a two-hour full-scale rock concert complete with big sound, hundreds of lights, video projection, complicated transitions and live performances. The schedule is aggressive and the demands put on the campers are no different from a professional working in the music industry. Rock Camp offers young musicians a real-life experience. Pulling together a show in two weeks would be impossible without the professional musicians, teachers, technical crew and staff, and most importantly, a ton of hard work on the part of the campers.
While at Rock Camp, kids learn about…
- The language of music and how musicians communicate with each other
- Instruments through demos, workshops, and hands-on time with pro instructors
- Workings of a theater; sound system, lighting design, and stage management
- Musical styles, life styles, and creating an image that goes along with their sound
- The importance practice, practice, practice, then practice some more
- Eating right, exercising the body, protecting hearing, and healthy living
- Sometimes real life lessons, like when a song gets cut from the final show
Why is PJ’s Rock Camp innovative?
Rock Camp is the exact opposite of a laid-back kids summer camp that ends with a cute recital. The entire objective of Rock Camp is ground-up production of a real rock concert that takes the audience on an epic music journey. Over two incredible short weeks, campers must organize into bands; define their style, sound, look and feel; select, learn, plan and rehearse their set; learn on-stage and front of house sound, work with lighting and video designers, and perfect their performances or risk having sub-par songs cut from the final show.
“PJ Olsson’s Rock Camp provides kids with a rare opportunity to work hands-on with real-life professional musicians who make music for living, and then share the big stage with these inspired performers in a live rock concert, that’s just not seen in any other program anywhere else in the country.”
– Suzanna Brent, past Executive Director, Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts
who is PJ OLSSON?
PJ Olsson brings a lifetime of insight, experience and stories to young musicians at Rock Camp. A father of three children, PJ understands the challenges and pressures kids face these days and how music can help kid’s heads and hearts work together. PJ has demonstrated an uncanny talent for relating to kids, helping them open up and discovering their strengths and their weaknesses. PJ leads by example and has endless stories from the music industry and life brings insight to his lessons. He also grew up in Houghton.
Career Highlights
- Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album, Eye In The Sky – 35th Anniversary Edition (2018
- Nominated for a Grammy Award for engineering on Alan Parson’s latest release A Valid Path
- Visine is the 1998 High Times song of the year
- Performed live on the David Letterman late show
- The Whistle Song featured in a Starburst campaign
- Appeared on CNN
- Appeared in Newsweek, Rolling Stone and USA Today magazines
- Music on CSI New York, CSI Miami, The Ghost Whisperer, Nip/Tuck and Dawson’s Creek
- Tours internationally as the lead vocalist for the Alan Parsons Live Project